The best iPhone photography apps
June 23 2009

With the recent launch of the iPhone 3G S and its 3 mega pixel camera I've decided to share my favorite 8 photography apps for the iPhone 3G. All of these applications should work beautifully on the more-gifted iPhone 3G S camera.

I have tried many more than these 8 apps, but I keep coming back to these regularly and find they are the ones that give me the most enjoyment. The can all take a ho-hum image and turn it into something more interesting that is worth sharing.

The apps I've selected are Photogene, CameraBag, Pano, TimeLapse, NightCamera, PhotoCalc, Flickit and TiltShift. When I last checked all of the apps were $2 or less.

The photo above is a nice example of how CameraBag can take a rather dreary photo and, after adding a filter (in this case their Magazine filter), generate a rather cool, retro '70s feel.

The included filters include Holga, Lolo, Magazine, Instant, Mono, 1962, 1974, Cinema, Infrared and Fisheye. I'm rather fond of the effects generated by the Holga, Lolo, Magazine and Instant (Polaroid) filters.

Photogene

This wonderful little application basically give you basic photo editing tools on your iPhone. With it I can adjust levels, contrast, exposure, sharpness, color levels and apply a crop. The application allows me to take a flat image and make it look like it did not come off of a phone.

It also has some features I don't use, which add borders and photo bubbles to images. Those features seem a little cheesy for my tastes.

This application lets me stitch images together to generate panographic images and is just fun fun to play with. I've stitched together landscapes, such as the one above, and the interior of gymnasiums. The tool is easy to use and helps you line up each image with the previous ones you took.

This is another fun app I like to play around with to get an artistic look. It mimics the effect of a tilt-shift camera by letting you select where the focus lies in your image. Both of these samples have tilt-shift and a CameraBag filter applied.

This app makes taking photos in low light easier by waiting until the camera is still to snap the shutter. After the shutter button is pressed the app uses the iPhone's built in accelerometer to sense when the camera is stable before taking a photo.

This little app is loaded with tools that make a photographer's life a little easier and is a great to have around if you shoot with a DSLR. The depth of field calculator will help you determine your total depth of field based on focal length, aperture and your distance from the subject. The flash exposure calculator will tell you if you have enough light to properly expose your scene. The solar calculator shows you the sunrise and sunset for your location so you can shoot during the golden hours. There is also a handy reference section that explains photography terms and gives tips on the Zone System, different film types and filters.